RIX Season: 4 Things to Know

Last weekend, Open House kicked off Rivals of Ixalan season, and now it's time to prep for Prerelease, League, Friday Night Magic and the rest.

Here are four things you should know:

Prerelease Parties increase flexibility, but not allocation.

Prerelease Parties are open play events meant as a beginner-friendly experience, an option for players who can't do the main event, etc.—now they can grab a Prerelease pack and participate however they choose. The hope is that retailers will wind up with fewer surplus Prerelease Packs come Monday.

But there's an important caveat: only players reported in the main event will count toward future allocations. This might put some retailers in a tricky spot, since earmarking product for these events potentially reduces future allocations.

Use your best judgment. It's perfectly fine to prioritize the main event.

League events should be reported once a week.

The Magic League format is pretty simple: start players with three boosters and sell them another each week, plus another after any set of three losses. They can battle any time you’re open.

Since there's a lot of freedom in the format, there's a bit of confusion about how to report it. It works like this: report one Magic League: Rivals of Ixalan Launch event each week that includes all players who did a league match.

Players can track their own wins and losses—all you're on the hook for is tracking who's picked up that week's pack and who hasn't.

This poster makes all that easier:

Use the colored boxes to track wins and losses (players can do this themselves, if you like—just a "W" or "L" will do), and the blank boxes to note how many packs that player has picked up. Download it here.

You can run Casual drafts on Draft Weekend—fewer than 8 players is okay.

Draft Weekend is the first opportunity to draft the new set, and the last thing anyone wants is for players to miss out for falling short of eight players.

During scheduling, TOs scheduled up to two Ranked events per day. But Draft Weekend isn't limited to Ranked events—you can run Casual drafts, too. It's okay to run them with fewer than eight players. Just schedule a Casual draft and you're set.

Issue FNM tokens at your discretion—just make sure they last all season.

Rivals of Ixalan FNM runs six weeks from January 19 to April 20. You've got either 4, 8, or 16 tokens per week.

That's really all you need to know. Which promos to hand out and why is up to you. So long as they end up with your players, and you ration them appropriately, you're doing it right.